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There were definitely doubters, but the North American Collaboration Summit has successfully executed the first “hybrid model” conference. And the results were better than any of us imagined.

• To read a full summary, including lessons learned, from conference organizer Mark Rackley, click here

The decision to go

Honestly, my beautiful wife, Tracy, and I were excited to just get out of the house and go somewhere. We have tried hard to abide by the recommended protocols of social distancing and protective measures. For months, we have limited contact to just our family and a very small number of selected friends. I was nervous about attending such a public event, but after talking to Mark about the measures that were going to be taken by the hotel where the conference was being held, the “contract” that all attendee and speakers would abide by and the current COVID-19 situation in the Branson, MO, area, we decided the risk was within reason to attend the event in person.

UPDATE-MARCH 30

Due to the global pandemic, NACS has been rescheduled for Sep 28-30, 2020. Click the image above for the latest information

Have you ever found yourself looking for an icon, but not able to quite track down the perfect one? Between SPFx projects and the new modern list formatting capabilities in Microsoft 365, I am often looking for the icon to perfectly represent my idea. Until now, this process involved browsing through the Fluent UI website in hopes that I will stumble across one that works. Now there is a better way: Flicon.io

UPDATE-MARCH 30

Due to the global pandemic, NACS has been rescheduled for Sep 28-30, 2020. Click the image above for the latest information

Anyone that knows me, knows my passion for community. This comes from the appreciation of so many people that have helped me over the years on their own time and free of charge because of their own passion for community. While I have seen this behavior in other IT “communities,” the SharePoint community is a special group that loves sharing knowledge with others. (It is right in the name!)

I was introduced to this concept about 14 years ago in my local Dallas-Ft Worth SharePoint User Group (DFWSPUG then, now O365 Community). As a newbie, it was there I found experts in a technology I was desperately trying to learn and not only did they teach us during the meetings, they offered themselves up to be contacted anytime. And they meant it! I know because I called often. Some members were Microsoft employees. Others were MVPs or MCMs. Most of us were mere SharePoint users and developers that were just helping each other expand our knowledge of the platform so that we could help our companies or customers. There are too many to name here, but a special shoutout goes to Eric Shupps(@eshupps), Kirk Evans(/in/kaevans), Miguel Wood(/in/miguelwood), and Corey Roth(@coreyroth) for answering so many questions I had during those early days (and still do!)

So this post falls into the category of “How old where you when you found out…?” The question is answered “I was today years old” because that’s how the question usually works. This was one of those days.

I was listening to a recording of the bi-weekly “Microsoft 365 Developer SIG community call,” which happens on the 4th Thursday of every month. (The Microsoft 365 Platform community calls are all worth checking out and each of them is recorded and then uploaded to Youtube within 24 hours of the live event. Find out more info here: aka.ms/m365pnp) Part of the call was a demo by MVP Chris Kent on custom formatting in lists and he was showing how to use emojis in the formatting. Again, his demos are “must see TV,” both for content and entertainment value.